Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • COMMENT

Scientists in Ukraine have long fought for scientific freedom

Researchers in the country have often shown creativity and resilience under threat. These strengths will be key to the future of science in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
  1. James Poskett

    1. James Poskett is associate professor in the history of science and technology at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Claire Shaw

    1. Claire Shaw is associate professor in the history of modern Russia and co-director of the European History Research Centre at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Broken screens and furniture lay around a faded mural of Soviet propaganda images at the Duga radar facility in Chernobyl

A Soviet propaganda mural at the Duga radar station near Chernobyl in Ukraine. The facility formed part of a missile-defence system. Credit: Jeremy Horner/Panos Pictures

World-leading zoologist Ilya Mechnikov wasn’t safe in the city of Odesa. The soldiers were breaking up protests. Students had gone missing. And the local police chief had put Mechnikov on a list of “politically untrustworthy” individuals. He decided it was time to leave. On 22 May 1882, Mechnikov handed in his resignation letter to the rector of the Imperial Novorossiya University (at the time in the Russian Empire, now Odesa National University in Ukraine), and left the country1.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 609, 243-244 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02825-2

References

  1. Vikhanski, L. Immunity: How Elie Metchnikoff Changed the Course of Modern Medicine (Chicago Review Press, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Duszyński, J., McNutt, M. & Zagorodny, A. Science 376, 1249 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Kojevnikov, A. B. Stalin’s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (Imperial College Press, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Plokhy, S. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Basic Books, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Martin, T. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Cornell Univ. Press, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Knox, J. E. & Kozulin, A. In The Disabled in the Soviet Union: Past and Present, Theory and Practice (eds McCagg, W. & Siegelbaum, L.) 63–84 (Univ. Pittsburgh Press, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Krementsov, N. Stalinist Science (Princeton Univ. Press, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Applebaum, A. Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (Knopf Doubleday, 2017).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Vucinich, A. Einstein and Soviet Ideology (Stanford Univ. Press, 2002).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Reinders, L. J. The Life, Science and Times of Lev Vasilevich Shubnikov: Pioneer of Soviet Cryogenics (Springer, 2018).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Smith, J. & Ilic, M. (eds) Khrushchev in the Kremlin: Policy and Government in the Soviet Union, 1953–64 (Routledge, 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gerovitch, S. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2002).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Peters, B. How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (MIT Press, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Graham, L. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links